Nuvifone to be made by Asus

Industry sources have confirmed that the Garmin Nuvifone will be manufactured by Asus, and the two have partnered together on the device for the past two years.

This comes as a surprise to some familiar with Garmin, as the company has long put a strong emphasis on manufacturing its own products and never outsourcing. However, Garmin does recognize that the move into the mobile handset world is different than GPS devices alone, due to the large amount of RF technology expertise and validation work required to make mobile handsets possible.

It looks like Asus’s main contribution to the project will be in the field of RF technology.

So far the Nuvifone has only been confirmed in black, though pictures have recently surfaced that show it in white. Sources are also saying the Nuvifone is now due out sometime in Q4, instead of Q3 as originally reported.